At about 4:10 p.m. on the 23rd, the containment rate of a wildfire that started in a low mountain near Geomse-ri, Samrangjin-eup, Miryang, South Gyeongsang, was tallied at 33%.
According to the Korea Forest Service on the 24th, as of 11:30 p.m. the previous day, 1.65 kilometers of the total 5 kilometers of fire line had been contained. The wildfire-affected area is 95 hectares. With wildfires breaking out simultaneously across the country recently and helicopters standing down after sunset, containment progress has been slow, it said.
The Central Disaster Management Headquarters of the Korea Forest Service decided to transfer unified on-site command authority for the Miryang wildfire to the Korea Forest Service commissioner from midnight. Accordingly, Park Eun-sik, acting commissioner of the Korea Forest Service, will take unified command of firefighting. Under the Forest Disaster Prevention Act, when a catastrophic wildfire is feared, the Korea Forest Service commissioner can take command on site regardless of scale.
Firefighting and forest authorities are concerned about the wildfire spreading. The low mountain where the fire broke out is about 250 meters high, and strong winds averaging 3 meters per second were blowing. Earlier, at about 5 p.m. that day, fire authorities issued Level 1 fire response, which deploys the entire jurisdictional fire station, and about 40 minutes later issued a national fire mobilization order. The forest authorities also issued Level 1 wildfire spread response at about 5:20 p.m.